The Life Room - by Jill Bialosky (Paperback)

About the Book

On a trip to Paris, Eleanor Cahn encounters a former love, which forces her to realize that she has suppressed her passionate self for years. Bialosky creates a fresh, piercingly real heroine who struggles with spiritual questions and dilemmas, and must choose between desire and responsibility.

Book Synopsis

Eleanor Cahn, a professor of literature, wife of a preeminent surgeon, and devoted mother of two, is in Paris to present a paper on Anna Karenina. A chance encounter brings to the surface passions she has suppressed for years. As The Life Room unfolds, we learn the secrets of her erotic past: ethereal William, her high school boyfriend; her role as muse to troubled painter Adam; her marriage to loyal, steady Michael. On her return to New York, Eleanor's charged attraction to another man takes on a life of its own, threatening to destroy everything she has. Jill Bialosky has created a fresh, piercingly real heroine who must choose between responsibility and desire.

From the Back Cover

"[A] suspenseful tale ... Bialosky explores the idea that needy people are often the most powerful and destabilizing. We're not sure why Eleanor wants to have an affair ... but we believe she does--and with a kind of reckless illogic that would do Tolstoy proud."--The New York TimesEleanor Cahn, a professor of literature, wife of a preeminent surgeon, and devoted mother of two, is in Paris to present a paper on Anna Karenina. A chance encounter brings to the surface passions she has suppressed for years. As The Life Room unfolds, we learn the secrets of her erotic past: ethereal William, her high school boyfriend; her role as muse to troubled painter Adam; her marriage to loyal, steady Michael. On her return to New York, Eleanor's charged attraction to another man takes on a life of its own, threatening to destroy everything she has. Jill Bialosky has created a fresh, piercingly real heroine who must choose between responsibility and desire."Bialosky creates a character brave enough to look back and try to regenerate all the emotional intensity of her younger self. Eleanor Cahn's journey is not just a reawakening, but a reclamation of a vital part of herself long buried under domestic minutiae and the travails of balancing family and career."--The Boston Globe"[Eleanor's]resolute self-destruction, with love the prime weapon, gives this novel the feel of an oncoming train.--The Los Angeles TimesA Chicago Tribune Favorite Book of 2007jillbialosky.comJILL BIALOSKY is the author of the acclaimed novel House Under Snow and three collections of poetry, The End of Desire, Subterranean, and Intruder. She is an editor at W. W. Norton & Company and lives in New York City. "

Review Quotes

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE LIFE ROOM

"Jill Bialosky pierces the heart here until the reader feels just exactly what it means to have it all--husband, children, success--and yet to be achingly alone, longing for passion, of the kind Anna Karenina sacrificed everything for. Through Bialosky's elegant prose and tremendous talents as a storyteller, desire reverberates across the pages to meet the reader's own."-- MARTHA McPHEE

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